Present Imperfect

Calling All Plumbers: Learn to Woodwork | May 24, 2006

Recently, Derek Powazek threw down the gauntlet on A List Apart. Now, my first reaction to this was “what’s Derek’s address, so I can send him a cookie bouquet or maybe a dozen Hoffa cupcakes?” But then I got all defensive. Because, hey! I didn’t just pick up this whole wordcrafting thing after reading a blog entry that told me to do it. I’ve been writing (and learning to write) my entire literate life. It’s an ongoing process and it takes time and devotion and enthusiasm to master. In other words, if you want writing done right, hire a writer.

A few comments on Powazek’s post say exactly that. But I’d like to up the ante. Powazek says that text is “as much a part of the UI as the colors, the pixels, the stuff that designers are usually concerned with. Perhaps more.” Definitely more. In fact, writing and the organization inherent in good writing goes much deeper than the UI. Before you have a website over which to push pixels and wrangle words, you need to decide exactly how all that content will be organized. And that’s why you should not only hire a writer to write, you should hire a writer to help design your information architecture.

I’m not the first person to suggest that writers and editors make great information architects. I don’t know if Jesse James Garrett, author of the brilliant “Elements of User Experience” is the first to suggest it, either, but he sure does. After all, Garrett explains, “throughout human history, the people most concerned with effective communication have been those who worked with language. Predating hypertext, predating plain old text itself, language is the original toolkit for ‘architecting information.’”

Of course, in an ideal world, your project already has its very own IA ninja. But if it doesn’t — and it probably doesn’t — I’d suggest getting an IA-happy writer involved at the beginning. Added bonus: copy as purposeful as it is clever is easier to craft if you’re intimately involved with content organization from the get-go. No point in changing “Submit” to “Get in there” if you don’t know what’s “in there.”